With an eye to the past while looking to the future, Moving forward was the theme of a forestry symposium held last week in Whitecourt.

Kicking off with an announcement that Whitecourt had once again been named Canada's Forestry Capital for a second year, the Canadian Institute of Forestry (CIF) symposium, held on Thursday, March 20 at the Westward Convention Hall, featured presentations from local government, industry, scientific and forestry management professionals discussing where the industry is headed in the next few decades.

“The future is bright,” said Gordon Sanders, Chief Forester with West Fraser, speaking to attendees on the evolution of the forestry industry in Canada. “We compete on the world stage and see strong markets ahead. There has never been a more exciting time to be in the industry.”

Intended as a means of igniting discussion about the future of industry-driven forest management in Alberta, the panel of delegates spoke to a variety of topics including land use, climate change, fire threats, education and the relationship of municipal governance and the forestry industry, a topic addressed by Woodlands County Mayor Jim Rennie.

Rennie spoke of the importance of parnterships -- not only between industry and local government but with the community and residents to ensure stakeholders have a part in improving the communities they are a part of.

Municipal partnerships, Rennie said, are vital to ensuring the future viability of industry in rural Alberta. He spoke of Woodland County's investments in economical development, specifically referring to the county's recent assistance in Blue Ridge Lumber's upgrades to its data management system.

He said that while some municipalities spend money and expend energy chasing and attracting new business, Woodlands County sees value in assisting businesses that are already here.

Another example of co-operation concerned an oil company coming to the County seeking a map of local railway spurs.

Instead of merely selling the company a map, the county sat down with the company to find out what their needs were. Rennie told attendees that the company was looking to develop an oil transloading facility that would allow tanker trucks to transfer their loads of oil onto railway cars.

Due to an ongoing relationship the county had with Whitecourt's Alberta Newspaper Corporation, Rennie said the county knew that ANC not only had land and expansion capacity to spare, but were looking to put their excess of resources to good use. A meeting between the two companies, facilitated by the county, lead to an agreement that resulted in the formation of the facility, along with twelve local jobs to maintain it.

From the effects of partnerships to the effects of factors further out of direct human control, University of Alberta Professor Mike Flannigan spoke to attendees about the effects of climate change on Alberta's forests.

Flannigan, who also serves as the director of the Western Partnership for Wildland Fire Science, warned that the changing climate will have a marked impact on the future of Alberta's forestry industry – effects that are already being felt today.

He spoke of a very recent effect of the earth's changing climate: the “polar vortex” phenomenon responsible for the miserably cold winter felt across much of central and eastern Canada.

“When you look at weather and climate, you have to look at the big picture,” he said. While the past winter was indeed unusually cold for some, other parts of the world instead experienced unseasonably warm weather. Parts of Eurasia, Australia and even the southern United States saw remarkably mild temperates throughout the winter months.

This warming trend, he says, has a direct impact on local forest disturbances, including an increase in pine beetle infestation rates, the length of severity of fire seasons and the sustainability of winter logging.

If current trends stay on course, Flannigan said that Whitecourt could have the same climate that Denver, Colorado currently experiences by the end of the century:long, dry winters with only two months of what we currently consider 'real' winter weather.

“If this pattern persists, we're going to see more weather extremes,” he said. “Fires, floods and droughts – and everything in between.”

This warming effect, he says, is already having a quantitative effect on Mountain Pine Beetle infestations in western Alberta.

A decade-long scourge in British Columbia, pine beetles have a firm foothold in southwestern Alberta and, according to Flannigan, have moved north.

Historically, populations of pine beetles have been kept in check by cold winters. Broods of beetles overwintering in infested pine trees cannot survive when outside temperatures fall below -30 degrees for sustained periods of time. The lack of these cold snaps have resulted in more beetles surviving the winter, and as a consequence mean more beetles are emerging in the spring to infest larger amounts of trees.

Warmer weather also results in deadlier fire seasons, he said. Alberta's forests usually see about 9,000 fires per year which burn about 2 million hectares of land – double the amount seen only three decades ago.

“What we've been finding is that the warmer it gets, the more fires you get,” he told attendees, explaining that this not only results in drier and more flammable fuels in the forest, but a significant increase in the biggest trigger of forest fires: lightning strikes.

“We're only trying to reduce the risks,” he said. “It's impossible to eliminate it. Forestry management is challenging today, and is going to get even more challenging in the future.”